WASHINGTON — With less than a week before the election, President George W. Bush sought to rally Republican voters on Wednesday with a vigorous defense of the war in Iraq and a vow to keep Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in office until the end of Bush's term.

Bush appeared on Rush Limbaugh's radio program, whose audience is a reservoir of conservative voters, to criticize Democrats for lacking a plan for victory in Iraq. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney also spent another day going after Senator John Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee two years ago, for remarks that Republicans say insulted the intelligence of American troops in Iraq.

"Anybody who is in a position to serve this country ought to understand the consequences of words," Bush said, "and our troops deserve the full support of people in government."

As the president worked to solidify his base, Democratic and Republican Party committees were making some of their final moves on the electoral chessboard. The Republican Senate committee reported spending nearly $1 million on television advertisements in Maryland and more than $800,000 in Michigan. The Senate seats in those two states are held by Democrats and have generally been considered safe for the party, but the investments there by Republicans suggested that they saw hope of making them competitive.

Democrats also sought to expand the contest for the Senate by buying air time in Arizona to rattle, if not defeat, Senator Jon Kyl, a Republican incumbent who was thought to be headed for relatively easy re-election. Democratic officials would not disclose how much they were spending.

Bush, in an interview with wire service reporters on Wednesday, said he intended to keep Rumsfeld at the Pentagon and Cheney in the vice presidency until he leaves office in 2009. Both are hugely controversial figures, even among some in the Republican Party, but they are also popular with conservatives who form the foundation of Bush's political and electoral strategy.

With polls showing a majority of Americans unhappy with the course of the war and many Republican candidates distancing themselves from the president on it, the White House was taking a gamble on making Iraq the central subject of political discussion in the final week of the contest for control of Congress. His embrace of Rumsfeld carried particular risk, since a number of Republican candidates have joined nearly all Democrats in calling for his dismissal.

Democrats responded to the Republicans' efforts with new advertisements accusing Bush and Rumsfeld of botching the war and making the United States less safe. A television spot from the Democratic Congressional Committee said, "The White House is in denial as top generals warn that Iraq may be sliding into full-scale civil war."

A veterans group released an advertisement on Wednesday in which Iraq war veterans and retired Gen. Wesley K. Clark, a 2004 Democratic presidential candidate, criticize the war. "Because of Iraq, there are more terrorists in the world," one veteran says. "Because of Iraq, America is less secure," Clark says.

Democrats also criticized Representative John Boehner, the second-ranking Republican in the House, for seeming to shift responsibility for problems in Iraq from Rumsfeld to the uniformed military.

"Let's not blame what's happening in Iraq on Rumsfeld," Boehner said in an interview on CNN on Wednesday afternoon. "But the fact is, the generals on the ground are in charge, and he works closely with them and the president."

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Seeking to a draw a parallel to the flap over Kerry's comments, Senator Harry Reid, the top Democrat in the Senate, demanded that Boehner apologize to the generals. "John Boehner ought to be ashamed," Reid said in a statement. "He's blaming our troops for failures in Iraq."

Senator Charles Schumer of New York, who leads the Senate Democratic re-election effort, said he welcomed continued discussion of Iraq. "When Iraq is the central issue, it helps us and it certainly helps Democratic turnout," he said.

Republican leaders hoped to buck up morale among conservative Christian voters, a normally reliable source of Republican votes. A sizeable number of such so-called values voters have told pollsters that they are unhappy with Bush and the Republican Congress and might stay home on Election Day or vote for Democrats.

James C. Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family and an influential voice among evangelical voters, said on his radio program this week that Democrats and the media were trying to suppress the conservative vote by reporting on unhappiness among evangelicals.

He also warned that a Democratic takeover of Congress would bring "crippling setbacks in the battles against abortion and gay marriage."

In recent days, Bush and Republican surrogates have rallied Republican voters by raising the specter of what they call unreconstructed liberal Democratic members of Congress leading powerful committees if the Democrats regain control of Congress.

Cheney took aim at one of them, Representative Charles Rangel of New York, who is in line to become chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, which writes tax laws.

Cheney said late last week that Rangel knew nothing about the U.S.

economy and would raise taxes as soon as he took over the committee.

Rangel responded by using a vulgarism to question Cheney's parentage. He said in an interview Wednesday that he was sorry for his choice of words, but not for the thought. He said he hoped that if the Democrats won control of Congress the nasty language on both sides would cease.

"I can take a political shot," Rangel said. "But my family and friends and constituents deserve better from the vice president of the United States."